When I had my son, I managed to nurse him for 6 weeks. He wouldn't take me, despite much interference from the Nipple Nazis (lactation consultants). So my life consisted of pump, give a bottle, sleep, repeat...every three hours. It was miserable and hormonal and I hated it.

     When I had my daughter, we had the opposite problem. She would ONLY take me, and screamed with rage if I even showed her a bottle. I nursed her until she was 18 months old, at which point my husband and my mother were convinced I would end up on Dr. Phil (or Time Magazine, LOL).

    When the goat babies came, they followed in my daughter's footsteps...nipple or nothing. Ok, I guess totally teat is a better alliteration. Especially Shadow...she wants nothing to do with me, any bottle, or any treat I bring to bribe her into bonding with me. To this day I have only touched her once, and that was when I pulled her from her mama's womb. Since then, I am Persona Non Grata. I have no idea how I'm going to trim her hooves, and they are rapidly approaching the need for it. Dart gun, maybe? Her cousin, Bailey, adores me...won't take a bottle, but climbs on me and sucks my fingers every chance she gets. I swear, she handed me her hooves and waited patiently for her manicure like she was royalty or something.

     Maybe Shadow is angry at me on behalf of her mom, Tiny. Tiny just recently learned that the milk stand is NOT her enemy. When she's up there, she doesn't have to fight for her share of the grain, and that very uncomfortable pressure by her right leg - you know, the pressure that comes when the babies decide that only ONE teat is worth sucking on - gets relieved. But in spite of this, it took her MONTHS to catch on and stop pulling and stomping and generally throwing a hissy fit. But yesterday I made the mistake of wearing my watch while milking... my watch with links that sometimes catch my arm hairs and yank them out. Well, I guess they also catch udder hairs. I guess that probably hurts a little more than pulling arm hairs. And now we are back to square one. When I called her to come up on the milk stand this morning, she looked at me like I was smoking crack, and I swear she said, "Touch my boob again, b___, and I will head butt you from here to Tuesday." Who knew goats could hold such a grudge? (Who knew goats could talk?). Anyway, now Tiny AND Shadow think I'm the devil incarnate.

     This week's lesson - milking is a no-jewelry-allowed activity. But one can hardly blame me...with my city girl background, I've never heard of anything that didn't involve jewelry.

      The picture is Shadow (black) and Bailey (brown):